Classic Poem

O save thy children blue Ontario! —
Who, in the wilderness, can calmly go
To do their worship in a lonely place,
By altars reeking with the she-wolf's trace:
And gaze intrepidly upon the skies,
While the red lightning in its anger flies —
When white men, in their terrour, close their eyes:
For man is there sublime — he is a god!
Great Nature's master-piece! like him who trod
The banks of paradise, and stood alone,
The wonder of the skies — erect upon his throne.

Not like the airy god of moulded light,
Just stepping from his chariot on the sight;
Poising his beauties on a rolling cloud,
With arm unstretched and bow-string twanging loud:
And arrows singing as they pierce the air,
With tinkling sandals and with golden hair;
As if he paused upon his bounding way,
And loosened his fierce arrows — but in play:
But like that angry god, in blazing light
Bursting from space! and standing in his might:
Revealed in his omnipotent array
Apollo of the skies! and Deity of Day!
In godlike wrath! piercing his myriad-foe
With quenchless shafts, that lighten as they go:
Not like that god, when up in air he springs,
With brightening mantle, and with sunny wings,
When heavenly musick murmurs from his strings —
A buoyant vision — an embodied dream
Of dainty Poesy — and boyishly supreme.

Not the thin spirit waked by young Desire,
Gazing o'er heaven, till her thoughts take fire:
Panting and breathless in her heart's wild trance —
Bright, shapeless forms — the godlings of Romance.
Not that Apollo — not resembling him,
Of silver brow, and woman's nerveless limb:
But man! — all man! — the monarch of the wild!
Not the faint spirit — that corrupting smil'd
On soft voluptuous Greece — but Nature's child,
Arrested in the chase! with piercing eye
Fix'd in its airy light'ning on the sky,
Where some red Bird is languid, eddying, drooping,
Pierced by his arrows in her swiftest stooping.
Thus springing to the skies! — a boy will stand
With arms uplifted, and unconscious hand
Tracing its arrow in its loftiest flight —
And watch it kindling as it cleaves the light,
Of worlds unseen but by the Indian sight;
His robe and hair upon the wind at length,
A creature of the hills! — all grace and strength:
All muscle and all flame — his eager eye
Fixed on one spot as if he could descry
His bleeding victim nestling in the sky.
Not that Apollo! — not the heavenly one,
Voluptuous spirit of a setting sun, —
But this — the offspring of young Solitude,
Child of the holy spot, where none intrude
But genii of the torrent — cliff, and wood —
Nursling of cloud and storm — the desert's fiery brood.

Great Nature's man! — and not a thing all light:
Etherial vision of distempered sight;
But mingled clouds and sunshine — flame and light.
With arrow not like his of sport — that go
In light of musick from a silver bow:
But barbed with flint — with feather — reeking red,
The heart-blood that some famished wolf hath shed!

Ontario of the woods! may no broad sail
Ever unfold upon thy mountain gale!
Thy waters were thus spread — so fresh and blue
But for thy white fowl and the light canoe.
Should once the smooth dark lustre of thy breast
With mightier burthens, ever be oppressed —
Farewell to thee! and all thy loveliness!
Commerce will rear her arks — and Nature's dress
Be scattered to the winds: thy shores will bloom,
Like dying flow'rets sprinkled o'er a tomb;
The feverish, fleeting lustre of the flowers
Burst into life in Art's unnatural bowers;
Not the green — graceful — wild luxuriance
Of Nature's garlands, in their negligence:
The clambering jassimine, and flushing rose
That in the wilderness their hearts disclose:
The dewy violet, and the bud of gold,
Where drooping lilies on the wave unfold;
Where nameless flowers hang fainting on the air,
As if they breathed their lovely spirits there;
Where heaven itself is bluer, and the light
Is but a coloured fragrance — floating — bright;
Where the sharp note — and whistling song is heard,
Of many a golden beak, and sunny sparkling bird:

There the tame honeysuckle will arise;
The gaudy hot-house plant will spread its dyes,
In flaunting boldness to the sunny skies:
And sickly buds, as soon as blown, will shed
Their fainting leaves o'er their untimely bed;
Unnatural violets in the blaze appear —
With hearts unwet by youthful Flora's tear:
And the loose poppy with its sleepy death,
And flashy leaf: the warm and torpid breath
Of lazy garlands, over crawling vines;
The tawdry wreath that Fashion intertwines
To deck her languid brow: the streamy gold,
And purple flushing of the tulip's fold;
And velvet buds, of crimson, and of blue,
Unchangeable and lifeless, as the hue
Of Fashion's gaudy wreaths, that ne'er were wet with dew.